Daddy’s little girl

At about 10:14 in the evening. I started my walk towards the meat-roasting joint. The two-direction road was narrow with enough clearance for only two vehicles. There was no sidewalk so you needed to be careful on this road. If one of the racing boda bodas didn’t get you, a wayward driver just would. A supermarket and a drug shop lay next to each other on this whitewashed building next to the joint.

An aroma of roasting meats greeted me. Predominantly goat and chicken mixed together to form an appetizing aroma difficult to describe. Kadogo greeted me beaming. Kadogo is Kiswahili for small. This name would be appropriate for Kadogo if he were not a hefty man, with a glinting baldhead and small beady eyes. I told Kadogo that I would take one bird for the family, raising up one finger as I spoke. Already pre-roasted, he carved the chicken with dexterity, sprinkled the severed parts with salt and threw them back onto the roasting metal net thingy with live charcoal underneath.

As I waited for Kadogo to finish his magic, I looked around absentmindedly. My eyes fell onto a little girl who I assumed was Kadogo’s daughter. She must have been around four years old. I looked at this child intrigued. You see at this time in the night, the child was sitting on a little stool away from the road chewing on a roasted drumstick nonchalantly. In her other hand she had a bottle of Fanta blackcurrant that she sipped from. The child had on one of those onesy pajamas. But what was striking was the ‘mind your business’ attitude she exuded as she sat on her stool.

If this child wasn’t the perfect embodiment of badassery I don’t know what is! You see she didn’t have curfew. She didn’t fear the night. She wasn’t bothered by the many people walking by. She was her own girl. She was keeping her father company as he worked the grill. She didn’t even notice me looking at her. She didn’t have to because she runs this part of daddy’s town. Kadogo probably told her mother he would watch over her that night. While many children her age where in bed sleeping, she didn’t subscribe to that natural order of things. Because she is her own girl. Daddy’s little girl. She really gave me something to think about.